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iOS Users, Chat Sensation WhatsApp Is Now Free -- Sort Of

The enormously successful mobile chat tool WhatsApp, which AppleApple recently listed as the 6th most popular paid app of all time, is now free. It had been 99 cents, so this might not seem like a big deal. But for some people, shelling out anything to just try an app is a barrier, so WhatsApp is likely to become even more well used. “Free” will come with a price down the road — you’ll pay $1 per year after the first year.

WhatsApp is part of a current generation of web sensations that have solved problems for millions of people that didn’t seem to exist at first. Like Instagram, which was hardly first to photo sharing yet now boasts 130 million users, WhatsApp is the new kid on the instant messaging block. But that block dates back to the earliest days of the consumer internet with AOLAOL‘s Instant Messenger and ICQ. Yet WhatsApp already has more users than Twitter and in June crossed the 250 million active-user plateau. On its biggest day, 27 billion messages were sent with the service. Part of the popularity is that it works on whatever device you have — iOS, Android, et al. — but another significant part is the company’s anti-advertising stance.

“”We do have a manifesto opposing advertising,” said CEO Jan Koum earlier this year. “We’re proud of that. Who likes advertising?” Presumably, even while giving away the first year, they mean to stick with that. That suggests, however, that other add-ons might be forthcoming, much the same way apps like Path make money from little visual add-ons like “stickers“.

Apps like Whatsapp are eroding time spent on FacebookFacebook, which of course has its own chat built it. But WhatsApp are almost certainly better than Facebook’s chat function among the younger people who are exhibiting at least some signs of Facebook fatigue.

WhatsApp isn’t completely an overnight sensation, having been founded in 2009 and having raised $8 million from blue-chip venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and others in 2011. It is, however, in that phase where it crossing over from something the young folks use to something everyone just has. Don’t be surprised to see it mentioned in the nine-figure (or even ten) valuation club with a new funding very soon.

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